I haven’t met a recipe that I couldn’t change. No matter what it is, there are ingredients that can be substituted to make them safe for a person with food allergies. And usually the substitutes are better for everyone–not just folks with allergies.
My latest experiment was with Key Lime Pie. The average recipe calls for the following ingredients, but if you’re lactose intolerant or have a flat-out allergy, you have been without this wonderful pie for a long time.
Normal Key Lime Pie:
I swapped the milk for coconut milk. The recipe calls for 1 can of condensed milk which is thicker than coconut milk and sweeter. So instead, I brought two cans of coconut milk to a boil and stirred it over low heat for a while (at least 30 minutes…yeah, not fun!) and added some agave syrup to make up for the sweetness of the condensed milk. I also cooked the assembled pies for about 10 minutes longer than the cow-milk version because they were still a little jiggly.
The outcome: they tasted GREAT! But they didn’t look as pretty as the cow milk version. They sat lower in the pie crust and pulled away from teh edges a little. But looks aren’t everything! You’re here to eat food not look at it all day!
1 Comment
July 25, 2008 at 1:45 am
My 14 year old daughter has struggled with food allergies for the last several years and you are right! You can substitute so many things in recipes – it’s amazing! When my daughter was diagnosed with wheat, egg, milk, cocoa, peanut allergies, I had to learn how to cook & bake & shop, etc. all over!!! I found applesauce to be an awesome substitute for eggs in many recipes! I could write for hours about all the different things I substituted in recipes for her, but I’m tired…